Favorites of 2021: Movies
Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955). Image source: Criterion.com
This past year I found myself rewatching films I'd first seen years or decades ago. I do this a good deal in most years, but this year it seemed as though rewatched films were a larger proportion of my viewing. So at the end of my list of favorite films first seen in the past twelve months I've added a couple ringers: movies that I first watched decades ago, but which on re-viewing I felt deserved a place on my favorites list.
In ascending chronological order by year of release:
Nightmare Alley (1947). Screenplay by Jules Furthman, based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham; directed by Edmund Goulding.
Coleen Gray (as Molly performing in her stage persona "Electra") in Nightmare Alley.
Stan Carlisle (Tyrone Power, playing against his usual romantic-hero type) is a carny, drifting along and looking for a hustle. Trading on his good looks, he seduces the sideshow psychic Zeena (Joan Blondell). When her husband Pete dies (an accident that Stan has a hand in), Zeena enlists Stan as a partner in her act and teaches him the secret communication code that makes her seem clairvoyant. Once he learns the code, Stan and his (younger, prettier) lover Molly (Coleen Gray) leave the carnival and head for the big city to make their fortune with an upscale nightclub act.
Unfortunately for Stan, "consulting psychologist" Lilith (Helen Walker, with tightly coiffed/repressed hair) comes to the nightclub one night. Soon they've formed a partnership: Lilith feeds Stan information from therapy sessions with her wealthy clients, enabling him to extort ever-increasing sums of money from them by pretending to commune with the spirits of their long-lost loved ones. But "psychic" Stan doesn't see that he's the one being conned. . .
The carnival sequences are authentically seedy, in part because a real carnival was rented and installed on the backlot. Screenwriter Jules Furthman (To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep) had to tone down many aspects of Gresham's novel, thanks to the Production Code, but the movie is still remarkably dark. Power gives an excellent performance as Stan, a guy for whom no scam, however successful, is ever quite enough, and whose fall leads him to make a desperate choice. Equally courageous is Joan Blondell, whose Zeena is a once-beautiful woman whose face and body are beginning to show the effects of her hard life. And Helen Walker makes a coolly calculating femme fatale, as she would in the next film on my favorites list.
Impact (1949). Screenplay by Dorothy Reid and Jay Dratler, directed by Arthur Lubin.
Helen Walker (as Irene Williams) in Impact.
San Francisco auto magnate Walter Williams (Brian Donleavy) dies in a fiery crash on a mountain road. Or at least that's the way it looks. Just before the crash, though, Williams was assaulted by a hitchhiker, shoved unconscious off a cliff and left for dead. Instead it was his passenger who was behind the wheel when Williams' speeding car plunged off the twisting road in the dark and exploded in flames, burning the driver's body beyond recognition.
When Williams returns to consciousness he's dazed. He crawls back up to the road and climbs into the back of a moving van that had stopped at the accident scene. Unnoticed by the movers as they drive off, the next day he wakes up with a splitting headache as they pull into a small town in Idaho. There he discovers the news of his "death" and a dawning realization: his wife Irene (Helen Walker) and the "cousin" she'd asked him to give a lift to (Tony Barrett) had plotted to murder him. And that insight leads inevitably to the conclusion that they must have been lovers.
In Idaho Williams meets the owner of a struggling gas-station, the war widow Marsha Peters (Ella Raines), and—his former life shattered—decides to stay on and help her as "Bill Walter." Eventually, though, he reveals his true identity, and at Marsha's urging returns to the Bay Area to clear his wife of murder charges in his "death"—only to find himself arrested, accused by Irene of killing her lover. Now Marsha must race against time to try to prove his innocence. . .
Impact offers some nice twists on the noir formula: instead of the Good Wife versus the seductive Other Woman, this time it's the seductive Bad Wife who (twice!) tries to do away with her husband, and the good Other Woman who tries to save him. The movie's chief attractions are the adversaries in that battle: the striking Ella Raines (of Hail the Conquering Hero), and Helen Walker, once again playing an ice-cold femme fatale with chilling effectiveness.
Love Me or Leave Me (1955). Screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart; directed by Charles Vidor.
Doris Day (as Ruth Etting) wearing a Helen Rose creation in Love Me or Leave Me.
The story of a nightclub singer's rise to stardom and marriage to a controlling, violent man may have attracted its star Doris Day because of the parallels to her own life. Singing hopeful Ruth Etting (Day) is spotted in a 10-cents-a-dance joint by Chicago gangster Martin Snyder (James Cagney). Snyder aggressively takes charge of Ruth's career, strong-arming Ruth's way into a job singing a warm-up jingle for a male headliner, and then engineering the headliner's no-show so that Ruth can go on in his place. A radio show follows, the Ziegfeld Follies are soon calling, and Ruth becomes the toast of Broadway—but she still somehow manages to keep Snyder at arm's length. Snyder's frustration and jealousy are further inflamed by Ruth's musical director Johnny Alderman (Cameron Mitchell), who has made no secret of his attraction to her. Ruth returns Johnny's feelings, but her career is tied to Snyder. Snyder ultimately coerces Ruth into marriage, resulting in misery for all three.
Day, dressed in a series of glamorous Helen Rose gowns, surprises by playing Ruth as a woman whose sweet appearance conceals a will of steel: she knows what she wants and goes after it, even at the cost of her own happiness. Cagney gives a fiercely driven performance as Snyder, the intensity of whose passion for Ruth is never enough to evoke responsive feelings in her. Cagney manages to make Snyder sympathetic in his inability to help himself despite his recognition of the hopelessness of his situation.
In addition to the strong script and performances, Day sings a dozen standards, including the title track, "Ten Cents A Dance," "Mean to Me," "I'll Never Stop Loving You," "You Made Me Love You," and a lush, emotionally freighted version of "Never Look Back":
https://youtu.be/rpdO0HFQ23c?t=2
All That Heaven Allows (1955). Screenplay by Peg Fenwick after a story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee; directed by Douglas Sirk.
Rock Hudson (as Ron Kirby) and Jane Wyman (as Cary Scott) in All That Heaven Allows.
Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) is a well-off widow in a New England town whose life revolves around her country-club friends and her college-age children. Passion is missing—until she meets Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), a much younger arborist (Hudson was actually only 7 years younger than Wyman, but Ron is supposed to be 15 years younger than Cary). Ron lives "simply" (in a gorgeously renovated old mill that would cost several decades of my salary) and invites Cary to dinner with his carefree bohemian friends; soon they are falling in love.
But Cary's country-club set is disapproving, and both her son and her daughter react badly (neither of them thinks it's appropriate for their middle-aged mother to be interested in love and sex). Her son actually buys her a TV set for company; in a brilliant reverse-angle shot she sees herself reflected in the screen as if trapped within it. Will Cary be able to summon the emotional strength to find happiness with Ron, or will she conform to the expectations of her neighbors and the wishes of her children and remain walled up alive in her comfortable tomb?
All That Heaven Allows is stunningly filmed in deeply saturated Technicolor by Sirk and cinematographer Russell Metty. The screen is flooded with gorgeous reds and golds when she and Ron embrace, and conversely when they are separated the winter landscape seems drained of color; Cary is often placed behind window frames as if behind prison bars. Sirk's use of shadows is as visually evocative as in a black and white film.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, 2019). Written and directed by Céline Sciamma.
Noémie Merlant (as Marianne) and Adèle Haenel (as Héloïse) in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Image source: UCSD Guardian
Beautifully photographed and delicately understated, Céline Sciamma's film focuses on the impossible and doubly forbidden love between the artist Marianne and her aristocratic subject Héloïse. Their love is impossible because, as Héloïse's companion (and secretly the painter of her portrait), Marianne is essentially a high-status servant in the household of the Countess, Héloïse's mother. Their love is doubly forbidden because it is both homoerotic and adulterous: Héloïse's marriage has been contracted and is imminent; Marianne has been hired to paint her wedding portrait.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire could not have been designed to be more enticing to us with its 18th-century setting, scenic locations, elegant interiors, lovely clothes, simmering erotic tension, hopeless love, passionate Vivaldi, intelligent script, and appealing actors (Noémie Merlant as Marianne and Adèle Haenel as Héloïse). What more could we ask for?
Ringers:
The Lady Eve (1941). Written and directed by Preston Sturges.
Barbara Stanwyck (as the Lady Eve) and Henry Fonda (as Charles Pike) in The Lady Eve.
The Lady Eve is the quintessential Sturges comedy. Charles Pike (Henry Fonda), heir to the "Pike's Pale Ale" fortune, is returning to New York from a snake-hunting expedition to the Amazon. On board the same ocean liner are Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck) and "Colonel" Harry (Charles Coburn), a father-daughter team of card sharps planning to fleece him and the other rich passengers along the way. Charles, who has been in paradise and is bringing home a snake, is about to fall.
The Lady Eve is the best of Sturges' movies, which is saying a great deal, and has one of the cleverest, funniest closing scenes in all American movie comedy. This was the peak experience of our home Preston Sturges film festival this year. If you've never seen it, viewing is highly recommended, and if (like me) you have seen it before, a rewatch is in order.
Oh! What a Lovely War (1969). Screenplay by Len Deighton (uncredited), based on the stage musical Oh, What a Lovely War! developed by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop; directed by Richard Attenborough.
This post will be published on Veterans' Day in the U.S., commemorating the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the moment when fighting was halted on the Western Front in World War I. That nearly 3,000 men were killed on that same day in the hours before the official cessation of hostilities is one more example of the horrific waste of life in that conflict, which resulted in the deaths of millions of soldiers and civilians, and permanent injury or disability to millions more.
Oh! What A Lovely War is a savage satire of the blunders and lies that led to and sustained the First World War. The home front, where brass bands play, musical hall stars exhort men to join up, and the appalling casualties are posted like cricket scores, is represented by Brighton Palace Pier; the battle front is depicted in all its muddy death-dealing horror.
You'll recognize virtually every notable British stage and screen actor of the time, including Dirk Bogarde (The Servant), Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal), John Gielgud (Secret Agent), Ian Holm (Dreamchild), Laurence Olivier (Rebecca), Michael Redgrave (The Lady Vanishes) and his daughter Vanessa (Mary, Queen of Scots), Ralph Richardson (The Holly and the Ivy), Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), and Susannah York (Tom Jones)—and if you have a sharper eye than mine you may spot Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) as a chorus girl. I first saw this when I was about 16, and the final shot has stayed with me ever since. The film was made around the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war, but its message seems aimed as well at the brutal campaign the U.S. was then waging in Vietnam. Oh! What A Lovely War will only lose its impact when working-class young men are no longer sent off to die in meaningless conflicts by rich old men who direct the carnage from a safe distance—which is to say, never.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynEWZF1bkLQ
Honorable mentions:
Cluny Brown (1946). Screenplay by Samuel Hoffenstein and Elizabeth Reinhardt, based on the novel by Margery Sharp; directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
Helen Walker (as the Honorable Betty Cream) in Cluny Brown.
The final film completed by Ernst Lubitsch before his death, Cluny Brown features his trademark lightness of touch as well as typically risqué dialogue, this time featuring plumbing as a metaphor for sex.
As the plumber-heroine Cluny, Jennifer Jones displays an unsuspected flair for comedy and a British accent that often vanishes completely, while as Adam Belinski, a penniless Czech refugee from the Nazis, Charles Boyer offers his usual suavity. Helen Walker (of Nightmare Alley and Impact) plays the Honorable Betty Cream, the presumptive fiancée of Andrew (Peter Lawford), an upper-crust son and heir. Betty and Andrew have had a row, and over the course of a country-house weekend Cluny (a maid/plumber) and Adam (a houseguest) present romantic complications for the couple, and each other. Andrew is sincere but a bit dim, while Betty is self-possessed, coolly witty, and gets some of the better lines.
Cluny Brown may not rank with Lubitsch's greatest work—for that you'll need to watch Trouble in Paradise—but it is a charming and affectionate send-up of British manners and mores, and its oppositions are never simple ones. It makes me wonder why both Jennifer Jones and Helen Walker didn't get to play more comic roles.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (1959), screenplay adapted from the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos by Roger Vailland, Roger Vadim and Claude Brulé; directed by Vadim.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 could almost be mistaken as a product of the French New Wave. An updating of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 novel in letters of aristocratic libertinage to the milieu of the Parisian haute-bourgeoisie in the late 1950s, Vadim's film seems to have been explicitly modelled on Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows, 1958). Like Malle's film, Liaisons is shot in black and white, stars Jeanne Moreau, and is set to a superb jazz soundtrack (by Thelonious Monk and Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers in Liaisons, by Miles Davis in Ascenseur).
Valmont (Gérard Philippe) and Juliette (Moreau), a well-off married couple, have agreed to sleep with other people, but have also pledged to be completely honest with each other; they have vowed "not to accept the lies that degrade other couples." But their apparent openness devolves into an intra-marital power struggle that brings disaster to everyone whose lives they touch, including the teenaged Cécile Volanges (Jeanne Valérie), her fiancé Jerry Court (Nicholas Vogel), her college-student lover Danceny (Jean-Louis Trintignant), and the devoted wife Madame de Tourvel (Annette Vadim).
The updating of the novel works surprisingly well. To the novel's letters the film adds phone calls, tape recordings, and telegrams; most of the translations required by the temporal leap forward by nearly two centuries maintain the spirit of the original. Some "modern" touches don't work so well, however. There's a scene where a jazz band (Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers) sends women into an orgiastic frenzy of dancing, like something out of Joseph March's The Wild Party (1928). And Vadim gives a smarmy introduction to the film in which he Explains It All To Us; one of its more memorable lines concerns "young women freed from sex-related social constraints and that burst open, buoyantly, like ripe fruits."
Vadim's appalling introduction aside, Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 largely succeeds on its own terms: it's sleek and chic and has excellent leads in Philipe and Moreau, who are flattered by the gorgeous black-and-white photography of Marcel Grignon. But, like the novel, it could have been a blistering critique of gendered power relations. That would have required, though, some self-critical reflection on the part of Vadim, whose later career (he wrote and directed Barbarella (1968), among other films) demonstrates that he forever remained a prisoner of the idea that women's sexual freedom should primarily benefit men.
Other Favorites of 2021:
